


And When You Came Home

by evil_brainmate



Series: Monarch (butterfly) [1]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-20 23:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3669498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_brainmate/pseuds/evil_brainmate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“She has nothin' else to go on. I disappeared last year and come back a fucking well-dressed murder machine that runs off at your every beck and call and gets home bruised and bloody.”</p><p>Michelle Unwin has her suspicions about how her 'tailor' son ends up with so many injuries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And When You Came Home

“Goin' back out with him then?”

Eggsy stops in his tracks, trying to suppress his instincts that have him reaching for the nearest weapon. He sets his bags next to the door and turns to look at his mum. Michelle Unwin is seated in the living room with a cuppa in one hand.

“I'm goin' to work?” he says, voice less sure than he'd like it.

“At this time o' night? Really?” Michelle's eyes glint with suspicion, and with good reason. It's been dark for hours and Eggsy's attempt to leave quietly and not wake anyone in the house looks an awful lot like sneaking come to think of it.

“Yeah. Gotta catch a flight tonight,” Eggsy replies casually, pocketing his keys and affecting an easy stance. “Got business planned tomorrow mornin' that can't wait.”

Michelle sets aside her cup on the side table and fixes her son with a piercing stare. “Where you goin'?”

“Paris,” Eggsy lies easily enough. “Going to pick up some shirting fabric and maybe snoop on some competition. Might have to pop by some of our Italian distributors too, so I might be a few days.” He can't really be honest and say he's actually nipping across the Mediterranean to assassinate some jumped up wannabe drug lord who is destabilizing the area's already fucked up politics.

“Fancy. Your man takes ya all the nice places, yeah?”

“The company does,” Eggsy corrects. He bristles at his mother's words, because no, he doesn't get taken anywhere, nice or not. He gets sent to places to complete his mission. “It's just a learning experience with one of our senior managers, mum,” Another lie. “Tailoring's a serious profession and all us newbies are expected to learn about all the business so we can be groomed to take over.”

“Alright, well you be careful and I'll see ya in a few days, yeah?” Michelle says. The disbelief is obvious in her tone, but she lets the conversation drop.

“I'll see you in a few days mum.” Eggsy agrees and kisses her cheek before he leaves. And maybe it's slightly fucked up he has to remind himself that she's his mum, not another spy fishing for information.

\---

A drug lord and his bodyguards are found dead in his estate with a series of double taps to the head and no surviving witnesses or suspects, and Eggsy's back at Kingsman four days later with a split lip, a bruised eye and a slight limp. It's all worth it though to hear “Excellent work as always,” at the end of his debrief with Harry – or rather Arthur as it happens, but all too soon Eggsy is dismissed so he can return home.

After the debrief, Merlin passes a snow globe with a little Eiffel Tower nestled inside to Eggsy.

“So how was Paris?” Merlin asks.

“What's this?” Eggsy looks between the snow globe and Merlin in obvious confusion. “You know I was in –”

“You told your mother you were going to Paris, so I procured that little trinket for you to give her,” Merlin says as though it's a completely normal occurrence to assist a man lying to his family.

“Shit,” Eggsy hisses. “Forgot about that. You think she'll notice all this? It's not that bad right?” Eggsy asks, waving a hand by his bruised face.

“No not at all, if you put on a mask and pretend you're the Phantom of the Opera.”

“Fuck.” Eggsy steps into fitting room three, through the wall to the armoury and sets his personal satchel on the sink. He rifles around inside and pulls out a compact and a tube of concealer before fixing Merlin with a suspicious glance. “Not a word, yeah? Don't wanna have to punch a bruv for some sexist bullshit.”

“Of course not,” Merlin chuckles. “Presently, there's no other missions requiring immediate attention, so you should have a few days to recover and spend with your family.”

“That's good, I suppose. Ugh. My kingdom for a proper brush,” Eggsy hisses as he uses his fingers to dab the concealer over the worst of the bruising around his eye and blends outward. It stings like a bitch and he could really use some foundation to make it less obvious. He settles for applying some powder from the compact to set the concealer and since there's nothing he can do about his lip, he calls it done.

“Fast. I'm impressed.” Merlin muses.

“I asked Rox to show me how to do this a while back. Can't go around looking like I just crawled out of a pub brawl. You should have her start teaching this in recruit training with how often we get all banged up.”

“Perhaps. The difficulty would be in getting the candidates to actually take it seriously.”

“What? Bunch o' posh gits worried that makeup's not manly but they gotta drink their tea with a pinky finger stickin' out?”

“More or less.”

“Bollocks if you ask me,” Eggsy mutters and with that he sets his products away and slings his bag over his shoulder. “Aight. I best get home and see me mum, then. You sure you don't need me?”

Honestly Eggsy would rather have taken a day or two at Kingsman headquarters to sleep off the worst of the wear and tear, but his mum's been calling every day since he left—not that he's answered—and he really needs to talk to her about him being an adult capable of surviving on his own for a few days. It seems Merlin was serious about Eggsy having a few days off though, so Eggsy says his goodbyes to Merlin and Andrew, their actual resident tailor, and catches a cab home.

It's late when he gets home, and Eggsy can hear his mum upstairs putting his sister to bed as he sets his bags down in the entryway. Eggsy pulls off his suit jacket and sets it over the back of a chair and loosens his tie. He knows he'll have to hang the jacket or it'll wrinkle, but he just can't be bothered right now. He makes his way to the kitchen to make a cuppa and waits for his mum to join him. As nice as their house is, it's in the same posh historic neighborhood as Harry's and the old walls are thin, so she must have heard him come in.

He's just turned off the kettle when his mother comes into the kitchen, swooping in for a kiss to his unfortunately bruised cheek, and he can't suppress the wince until it's too late. Of course his mother notices.

“Eggsy? Are you alright?” She asks, genuine concern lacing her voice.

“I'm fine, mum,” Eggsy says, but his mum reaches a hand out tilts his chin towards the kitchen light.

Michelle sucks in a breath when she sees her son's face. He's covered up the worst of the bruising on his left cheek with makeup, but she can see right through that ruse even if he hadn't been sporting a split lip. How could she not when she had looked at the same marks on her own face so many times over the years? How many times had she hastily applied cover up because Eggsy was going to come home and she couldn't let him see?

“Eggsy,” Michelle murmurs, trying to keep her voice as reassuring as possible in hopes her son won't immediately go on the defensive. “You know you can tell me anything.”

“No. Mum, I really can't. I'm sorry,” Eggsy replies, and Michelle feels her heart break.

“Is he—This man you're seeing. Is he hittin' you?”

“What? No mum! Harry would never—”

“Harry? That's 'is name?”

“No, mum! I-I'm not—Harry's my boss.”

“Your boss. Your boss is smacking you around? Are you two—?”

“It's nothing like that, really!” Eggsy sputters. He can't believe of all the conclusions his mom came to, that she jumps to abusive older boyfriend. Seriously, given his former extracurricular activities, he's surprised she wouldn't assume he was involved in bar fights or drug deals gone wrong. “Trust me. Harry and I aren't even like that, and even if we were, which we're not because Harry definitely ain't interested in no chavvy bruv like me, Harry would never do nothin' untoward. He's a gentleman through and through.”

“Then how are you gettin' beat up?”

“I can't tell you that, mum. You shouldn't even worry—”

“How can I not worry?” Michelle grits out the words. In all honesty she wants to shout; if not for her daughter sleeping upstairs she probably would. “You're my son, Eggsy, and I didn't see you for months. Months! And then when you finally came home you weren't the same. You—You tell me you got yaself a job as a 'tailor'. And suddenly ya have all these nice suits, and this posh accent, and you run off at all hours to this mysterious 'Harry', and you go places like Paris and Milan and you come back beat ta hell. Eggsy, I don't know what happened while you were gone, but I saw the way you beat Dean and his boys, and baby, I don't know how you could go 'round gettin' hurt after that unless you ain't fightin' back.”

“Leave it be, mum,” Eggsy growls trying to maintain his calm, because this is his mother and he knows she loves him, but he can't answer her.

Michelle flinches at that. How many times did she say the same thing to Eggsy? Leave it be, don't talk to Dean like that, it's nothing, and now here's her baby boy repeating the same mistakes. “Eggsy, sweetie. I know I ain't got no room to talk, but if he's hurtin' you, you need to tell someone. You need to call the police. This house, this life, it ain't worth what he's doin' to ya.”

“Mum, I—I'm sorry, but I just can't,” Eggsy chokes back his words and walks back into the foyer to retrieve his coat, his tea long forgotten. “I'll be back in a while, yeah? I gotta go.”

“Eggsy, wait!” Michelle does raise her voice this time in panic.

“I promise, I'll be home in the mornin',” Eggsy assures her with a brittle smile.

With that, Eggsy bolts out of the house and down the block and around the corner, grateful for the fact that Kingsman provided houses were located fairly close to each other. It takes him about four minutes to wind his way through the neighborhood and reach Harry's door, and he's not even winded thanks to his training.

_And when you came home, you weren't the same._ The words echo in his head. He wasn't the same, really. He had always been fairly athletic, but now he could run for miles without stopping if he had to. He could take on dozens of grown men armed to the teeth and still come out on top. He constantly checks himself anytime someone asks an invasive question or catches him unawares, because his first instinct now is to incapacitate and interrogate. And how telling is it that at the first sign of trouble, he doesn't even consider going to his family? Instead he runs to Harry—to Kingsman.

“C'mon answer the fuckin' door, mate,” Eggsy growls as he presses the doorbell repeatedly.

Eggsy panics and thinks for a moment that Harry might still be at the shop, and he's making a fool of himself, but the door swings open and Harry is standing there, half out of his suit with a perturbed expression.

“Well good evening to you,” Harry grumbles as Eggsy muscles past him into the house.

“I need to tell me mum about Kingsman,” Eggsy blurts the moment the door closes, and Harry's expression shifts from annoyance to shock and then concern.

“You know you can't do that,” Harry says. “Our work is highly classified Eggsy, and the more your family knows, the more they can be used against you.”

Eggsy rolls his eyes and flops into one of the dining room chairs. “Yeah, well my mum is going mental over all the changes in our life, and she thinks you're my skeevy sugar daddy who gets off smacking me around,” he replies.

“Come again?”

“Yeah. I told her it's nothin' like that, but y'know she has nothin' else to go on,” Eggsy nervously taps his fingers against the table and refuses to look at Harry as the man takes a seat next to him. “I disappeared last year and come back a fucking well-dressed murder machine that runs off at your every beck and call and gets home bruised and bloody.”

“I think I need a drink. Would you like one?” Harry reaches for the nearby decanter, and two glasses.

“Yeah, sure,” Eggsy sighs. Not like he's gonna turn down a drink, and he could really use something to calm his nerves. “Is it alright if I crash here? I kinda ran off and told me mum I'd be back tomorrow.”

“Of course. You can use the guest room.” Harry pours both of them two fingers of scotch and hands a tumbler to his protege.

“Thanks, bruv,” Eggsy says, both for the drink and the hospitality.

“As far as your home situation goes,” Harry continues. “I can see how family would complicate matters. Most Kingsman agents either aren't close to theirs, or multiple family members are within the different branches and levels of our organization.”

“Well that's us out then. Me mum ain't exactly a tech genius or able to kill somebody with a pen and don't you fuckin' tell me to abandon my family.”

“I would never suggest that, Eggsy.”

“So what then?” Eggsy asks, and really there's no reason for him knocking back a drink to seem so aggressive.

“I don't know,” Harry admits as Eggsy waves off his offer of another round. “There's not many people we can ask for suggestions on this matter. I suppose it all boils down to acceptable risks and evaluating what information your family can know.”

“I've already been lying about where I'm going. They thought I was in Paris this week. And well I was actually in Milan a while back, but mum thought it was for some fashion thing.”

“Technically it could have been,” Harry says and Eggsy would swear the man is smirking behind his glass while he sips his drink.

Eggsy lets out an amused huff. “I tailed a bloke who hooked up with a model. Not exactly attending any of the shows.”

“Details. The point is either you will have to keep feeding your family misinformation, or you clam up altogether on that front. The key is that they can't know who you work for, what you do, or where you are. That's all classified information.”

“Well that's exactly how it is now!” Eggsy shouts. “So what's the point of this conversation?”

Harry ignores the other man's outburst and continues his more sedate explanation. “You're overlooking the fact that you can tell your mother things outside of that. After all, while you work in a highly classified field and organization, you are also training as a tailor, as all Kingsman agents do. You can tell your mother you're leaving and that you'll be gone for a time. You can tell her you have coworkers you adore, like Roxy and Merlin. There's a wealth of non-proprietary information that you can share.”

“So, you would be alright with me telling her about you and Rox and anything not classified. But I have to deny being a spy? You know she's gonna ask at some point with all the dodgy answers I be given her.”

“You can neither confirm or deny that.”

“You never tried to get this shit past your mum did ya?” Eggsy asks with a conspiratorial grin.

“No,” Harry replies. “My mother passed away before I joined Kingsman.”

“Sorry 'bout that.”

“The sentiment is appreciated, but it's quite alright.”

“Thanks Harry,” Eggsy says. He pulls himself up out of the chair with a wince when he places weight on his sore leg. “Guess I should get to bed, yeah? Gotta be up early to talk to me mum, and I feel like I'm dead on my feet from that last mission.”

“Of course,” Harry agrees. “I will see you in the morning Eggsy.” With that, he picks up their tumblers and takes them to the kitchen while Eggsy ventures upstairs to the increasingly familiar guest room.

\---

The next day when he returns home, Eggsy pulls his mother next to him on the couch in the sitting room.

“Mum, you remember when I was a kid and Dad died? You remember the man that came to see us?” Eggsy asks, and he can't help but wonder how Harry was able to talk about his own mother so easily, when Eggsy has always struggled to speak about his father's death.

“Of course. Some posh bloke with a medal. Said his name was Ha—” Michelle's voice cracked as she realized. “Harry Hart. That's your Harry, innit?”

“Yeah mum,” Eggsy says with a nod. “And I'm sorry I can't tell you things for the same reason Dad couldn't. I know you didn't want that kinda life for me, hell you didn't even want me to be in the Marines. I'm sorry if you're angry—”

“Eggsy,” Michelle croons as she pulls her son into an embrace. “I can't say I'm happy, but you've done what you had to. You've done so much for your sister and I. Just—Just be careful, yeah? You keep coming home to us, y'hear?”

“Yes mum,” Eggsy replies and tightens his arms around his mother.

“So what can you tell me?” Michelle asks, a few moments later.

“Well basically all of it's classified, but I can tell you about my coworkers?”

“I'd love to hear about them.”

“I guess we'll start with Harry then.”

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, so please tell me if there's any glaring mistakes.
> 
> My Kingsman specific tumblr: [oggalahad](http://oggalahad.tumblr.com)
> 
> Looks like Kingsman got me back into fanfiction. I've written nothing but scripts and research papers for the last five years.


End file.
